The identity clinic Carl Elliott argues that happiness has become the goal of medicine - and it will make us miserable

The Red-Green Divide Over Human Enhancement Over the coming decades both demographic and technological trends will turn America's current red-blue divide into a red-green divide -- "red" for those religious Hispanic, blacks and evangelical whites who will want to stop human enhancement, and "green" for those more secular Hispanics, blacks and whites who will want to go forward with it.

Bioethics Group Urges Infertility Scrutiny Bioethics advisers to President Bush are urging more scrutiny of the nation's infertility industry, including research on the long-term health of test-tube babies. The President's Council on Bioethics also wants Congress to ban experimental procedures that might mix human and animal embryos.

Thou shalt not make scientific progress Medical research is poised to make a quantum leap that will benefit sufferers from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and other diseases. But George W. Bush's religious convictions stand in its way.

MIT Helps Unlock Life-extending Secrets Of Calorie Restriction Shedding light on why drastically restricting calorie intake prolongs life span in some organisms, MIT researchers report in the Jan. 1 issue of Genes and Development that lowering the level of a common coenzyme activates an anti-aging gene in yeast

Anti-Aging Gene Most of us think aging is inevitable. But Cynthia Kenyon has committed her career to proving us wrong.

'Designer babies' on the NHS Six ‘designer babies’ could be created in the Midlands by the end of the year - on the National Health Service.

Cogniceutical Improves Verbal Memory in Older Men Nature reports on a new cogniceutical based on a liquorice extract that improves memory in older men. The substance works by blocking the activity of a brain enzyme that boosts levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This hormone is thought to be responsible for eroding memory with age.

The Limits of Medicine Washington Post op-ed: "Why has our huge investment in health care left us so unhealthy? Partly it is because so many promised "miracle cures," from Interferon to gene therapies, have proven to be ineffective or even dangerous. Partly it's because health care dollars are so concentrated on the terminally ill and the very old that even when medical interventions "work," the gains to average life expectancy are small."

Unlikely nomads: Senior single women take up life on the road With spouses out of the picture and their children grown, hundreds of senior women are hitting the road for good, leaving retirement communities, shuffleboard tournaments, and the snow far behind.

Elderly's value realized in times of crisis "Yet we still treat the oldest old as either a messy problem to be solved or as an ancient scroll to be decoded. That's all wrong. We should be treating them like national treasures and security blankets in these anxious times."

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